{During the early Middle Ages in Western Europe] Christian carols and hymns were sung and danced in stanza-chorus form. To carol means to dance. The division [suggests] the shape the dance would have taken. During the stanza, which means stand or halt, the worshippers stood generally with their attention directed to the center of the circle and what was celebrated or believed. If it was a line carol the focus would be on the destination of the dancers. During the repeated choruses the people would dance, using a three-step or tripudia. The tripudium was done both at a slow and medium speed, usually in an attitude of joy or jubilation. (Jubilate is another translation for tripudia.) The step [which can be traced to ancient Rome] involved three steps forward and one step backward, and was used in ring dances, line dances and processionals. It came to signify man's humility - 'I go forward, yet I falter' - and was an act of reverence. It is the basis for genuflection still used in Christian worship.

During this early medieval period of Christian corporate worship, the priests and other holy dignitaries danced with the parishioners. Within the dances of the liturgy the movements of the individual soul were lost to the to the majestic rhythm of the Church. This dancing symbolized and suggested a sense of equality.

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries the rising clerical hierarchy began an effort to separate themselves from the common people. Priests would only dance with other priests on certain days, deacons would dance with deacons and the people were left to dance with themselves in holy worship. The bishops would sit alone, above everyone. Certain bishops, however, joined in the dancing of the people, this tended to threaten the authority of the Church and inadvertently led to the creation of new edicts and legislation against the use of dance in its various Christian forms.

From We Circle Around , Newsletter of PeaceWorks International Network for the Dances of Universal Peace, copyright 1995, used with permission.